The Brand of the Offspring of Fear
by bohowriter
Summary: John Watson had a high threshold for terror. But he was not immune to fear and what it brought with it.
Not fear.
Maybe, out there somewhere,  
the possibility of fear; the wall  
that might tumble down, because it's for sure  
that behind it is the sea.

Not fear.  
Fear has a countenance;  
It's external, concrete,  
like a rifle, a shot bolt,  
a suffering child,  
like the darkness that's hidden  
in every human mouth.

Not fear.  
Maybe only the brand  
of the offspring of fear.

-Rafael Guillen, from "Not Fear"

* * *

If John had nightmares after he moved to Baker Street, he didn't remember them come morning.

He assumed if he woke up with a shout, yelling in either English or Pashto, Sherlock would burst through his door soon after with some weapon, possibly John's own gun, ready to battle against whatever foe had dared creep into the upstairs bedroom.

Given their lifestyle, it wasn't a completely implausible scenario.

John had seen many things while living with Sherlock, things which would make the most stoic of men break. But Captain John H. Watson of the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers had a high threshold for terror. So because John never woke up with Sherlock in attack-mode, he assumed his sleep had become more peaceful. And for a while, he had no means of comparison.

Then Sherlock—mad, brilliant, unpredictable Sherlock—stayed true to form and surprised everyone by leaping from St. Bart's roof to the cold ground below.

As it turned out, the only event which triggered the return of John's nightmares was watching gravity draw his best friend's body to the ground. After they'd spoken on the phone and John had failed to talk him out of it. After they'd had a brief row and John called him a _machine_. And before he'd had the chance to tell him the truth, as he did to the group of onlookers on the pavement.

 _He's my friend…my friend…_

John Watson had a high threshold for terror. But he was not immune to the fear of watching the best and bravest man he'd ever known die.

* * *

He doesn't remember the few weeks after that horrible day, because he gets drunk enough to forget whatever happens at night and numb enough to get through the moments he can't sleep. It's a visit from Molly that pulls him out of it, makes him see reason, sends him back to work and back to visits with Ella and back into the world. And once the drinking stops, the nightmares begin.

John thinks they are nightmares, at least. He can't remember them, must sleep straight through them. But he wakes in the morning shaky, more exhausted than when he went to sleep, terrifying images and feelings fading from his mind like the last reel of a horror movie: a grey sky with a dark image against it. The scene shifting, ground moving upwards vertically. The desire to move, to _move_ , but the feeling of being stuck in place. And blood, bright red blood, against hard grey and a soft, sinuous dark.

He doesn't go to bed with these thoughts, at least not on a conscious level. It's as though a darkness comes to him in the night, a shadow of his fear that brings with it memories he is trying desperately to escape. John assumes they must be nightmares, but now there is no one around to tell him if he cries out a name, if he screams. So he chooses to pretend everything's fine, because if he can't survive drunk or sober, he doesn't know what to do.

But he still moves out of 221B after six months, to a bedsit on the other end of the city, and he waits to do it until Mrs. Hudson is away for the weekend so he won't have to face her. Part of him hopes he doesn't leave his darkness, his nightmares behind like a ghost as Mrs. Hudson's only companion in the flat, but for his own sake, another part hopes he does.

* * *

John meets Mary by chance. He won't ask her out, of course, not that she's not beautiful and funny when they talk, when their shifts overlap at the surgery and they make small talk over a quick cuppa between patients. Not that she doesn't help him to forget his emptiness for just a moment.

(He wonders, of course, could that moment last longer? Could she fill the hole that's been left gaping and raw? Could she drag him back into the real world, and away from a past that will never be again?)

A year ago, he would have flirted effortlessly, would have asked her out, would've done much sooner, but he's not that John Watson anymore. And it's too bad, because Mary doesn't know his past. She's only recently moved back to England from being abroad, he learns this early on, and unless someone's told her about him, she has no idea his connection to Sherlock, to Moriarty, to any of it. To her, he's just Dr. John Watson, a quiet, middle-aged man who spends more time at work than he should and laughs at her jokes.

And maybe that's why, after two weeks of this, she asks him out instead.

John wants to ask why, because while he doesn't see himself as unattractive or as a bad man (no, not when he's seen the likes of Moriarty, who _had_ to be the reason his best friend was—), despite his practiced smile and kind eyes, he knows he can't hide the truth that he is broken. It can only be hidden for so long, because after a while the cracks poke through your skin and everyone knows. John knows this from his life before Sherlock. Mary must know it by now, just by looking at him.

But she asks John out for dinner after their next shared shift anyway, so maybe she doesn't care.

* * *

John doesn't stay the night with Mary until nearly a month later, a month of dinners out every few days, and the cinema on Fridays, and once, when the weather was nice, a picnic on a Sunday afternoon like a proper couple. He won't invite her back to the bedsit he's returned to after fleeing Baker Street, and he's hesitant to be the one to suggest they go to her flat. So each date ends with John walking Mary to her front door and a shared, albeit chaste, kiss.

But even though the sorrow and fear aren't gone, and even though he's getting older every day, John Watson is still human. He's still a man who is enamored with a woman, and, simply put, such a situation brings about urges. Mary must have them too—they're both adults, after all—because one Friday after a particularly good dinner and bad film she pulls him close at her door and kisses him longer and deeper than they have before. And in that moment everything else disappears for John: the pain, the fear, it's all being filled up by warmth and longing and _desire_.

He hasn't felt any of that in so very, very long.

Is that the same feeling as love? John isn't sure, but in that moment, it's enough.

So they go inside, in that clichéd way John thought only happened in films where the couple stumbles from the door through the house to the bedroom while snogging and ripping off each other's clothes. It's highly impractical, he discovers, slowing the entire process down, but John can't stop, can't stop, because that warmth moving through him is just _intoxicating_ and it's the first good thing he's felt in over a year.

Mary is just as enthusiastic as she leads the way, walking backwards, bumping into walls, while she blindly undoes John's belt, and together they finally make it to the bed. Although John makes love to her with the enthusiasm and urgency of a younger man, his reasons why are those of someone much older. As they move together John remembers happiness, warmth, love, and he's felt none of those things since…because it seems all the good things and feelings in his life stopped at once.

It's not his best work, because he's out of practice both physically and emotionally. But he is still an attentive lover and brings Mary to release first. And when he reaches his own climax soon after, John feels light and weightless for the first time in over a year.

After, John breathes heavily and holds Mary close. She runs her fingers up and down his chest, strokes the fine line of hair there, her palm from time to time covering his thudding, alive heart. The bed is warm and soft, and smells of Mary. Her flat, now that he has a chance to see where he is, is comfortable and inviting. John feels safe. John feels welcome. He doesn't know if that's love either, but right now, it's enough.

So he finds himself murmuring into Mary's hair, "I love you," faintly aware it is simultaneously too early to say it and also past due given the events of the last half hour. Mary doesn't respond, just hugs his chest tighter, and for John that's enough. He closes his eyes and gives in to sleep, thankful he is not alone.

— _And he must be asleep but he's woken by a mobile phone ringing, ringing, and he answers it blindly to find it's Sherlock's voice on the line, Sherlock, calling and John opens his eyes and he's standing on the pavement across from Bart's, and Sherlock is back on the roof—_

— _John blinks and he can see Sherlock's face, which seems odd because they are so far away, should be so far away, but John can see his face and he is crying, Sherlock is crying, and he's telling John it's all a trick, just a magic trick, and John is arguing, talking over Sherlock in that way he can rarely ever do—_

— _and even though John is begging, pleading, Sherlock still says "Goodbye, John" like he always does and throws the mobile away and steps to the edge and spreads his arms—_

— _and John wants to run to him and catch him, knows he can't actually catch him, it'll kill them both, but by god he will try, and this time he can make it if he runs his fastest he knows he can he knows he can I know I can just let me save you Sherlock—_

— _SherlockSherlockSherlock—_

 _SHERLOCK!_

John wakes with a scream and the feeling of someone holding him in place. He starts to fight until he hears a voice, a woman's voice, _Mary's_ voice saying, "John! John, it's ok! It's only a dream."

He stops fighting but he can't breathe for the pressure on his chest. He forces himself to focus on his surroundings, slow his breathing. He's sorry the brief respite from earlier is now broken and he's back in reality.

John Watson had a high threshold for terror. But he was not immune to the fear of how he had failed his best friend.

The panic is slowly fading and is replace with shame. John sits up and breaks from Mary's grasp, fumbling in the bedclothes for his pants and vest, then on the floor for his trousers and socks. His shoes are somewhere in the flat, as is his shirt and jumper, and he can get those later. Right now he needs to get out, to get _home_ , though he realizes belatedly he doesn't know where "home" is anymore.

Somehow he's gotten out of the bedroom before Mary appears, gently placing her hands on his shoulders again and steadying him.

"John," she says, "Wait. Just wait."

"I can't—" he starts, but he still is unable to breathe right and his hands are fumbling with the zip on his jeans.

"I need—I need to go."

"John," Mary says more firmly. "If you walk out that door right now, then we'll never talk about this. You'll be embarrassed when you see me, so you'll avoid me, and eventually we won't speak anymore."

John can't make eye contact, focuses instead on his trembling left hand and tries to get it under control.

But Mary follows his gaze and sees it anyway, and takes it in her own hand, kissing his calloused knuckles and drawing him close.

"Just stay for a cup of tea," she persuades, her voice soft and soothing. "Then we'll call a cab and you can go home. But stay long enough for one last cup of tea."

So John stays; he has nowhere else to go.

* * *

She finds his favorite tea in the tin and sets the kettle. John sits at the kitchen table, still shivering intermittently. When the tea is ready Mary sits across from him and takes his hand, and John finds he can no longer look her in the eye.

She'll want to know why, of course. You don't fuck a girl and then wind up screaming some bloke's name in her bed a few hours later. It's just not done.

Mary wasn't around for any of it, so he can't very well explain it in the amount of time it takes to drink tea before it goes cold. He can't explain it any more than the reasons how he came to be this broken shell of a once strong man, even though the two answers are one and the same.

Only when Mary starts to speak, she catches him by surprise when she says, "Since this might be the last time we talk, I need to tell you that I know who you are, John Watson. I know you were Sherlock Holmes' blogger. That you were flatmates and you went with him on cases, and that you were there when he died last year."

John looks up in shock, because Mary's not supposed to know any of that. "How…?" he begins.

Mary smiles softly and replies, "I researched you."

— _And suddenly John's back there, on the pavement across from Bart's, because that's what Sherlock said, too, on the mobile, and then he said it was all a trick, a magic trick, and no one could be that clever but you could_

"John!" Mary's voice breaks his thoughts and the darkness in his vision recedes.

"Sorry, I—" John takes a shuddering breath. "When did you…? How long ago…?"

"After our first date," Mary reaches out and strokes her hand along his cheek, surreptitiously wiping away a single line of salt water John hadn't noticed was there. "I just Googled you, you know. Making sure you weren't a serial killer." She pauses. "The news articles came up first, but I went to your blog before I read any of that."

John lets out a long sigh. "I didn't want you to know. I was trying to…leave that part of me behind. Trying to move on."

"I can understand. But John…it's still part of who you are."

"Yeah," John snorts ruefully. "Think I've proven that tonight."

Mary shakes her head. "No, no, love. I read every entry on your blog. I can understand why Sherlock was so important to you, how important he was to everyone in Britain without their realizing it. But you were a part of that, too. It's clear you were important to him."

John closes his eyes. He can't hear this, not now, not these kind words when he doesn't deserve them. "I'm no one, Mary," he says, voice low and rough. "I was no one then, apparently, because I couldn't keep him from—

And Mary interrupts him, stops that train of thought with a most unusual request.

"Tell me something funny about him."

John opens his eyes, unable to hide his confusion. "What?"

"I told you. I read the blog, I read the articles. What I know about the man is larger than life. But I'm sure he was human, too. So," she pushes the untouched teacup closer to John's hand. "While we drink our tea, tell me something funny about Sherlock Holmes that made him human."

John thinks a minute, because those memories, those daily, insignificant things, are all shoved to the back of his memory bank and overshadowed by just moment on one day. Then, a smaller, brighter memory comes to him.

"You read about the Mind Palace?" Mary nods. "Well, he didn't store everything he ever learned. There wasn't room, he said. Anything he deemed insignificant, he 'deleted.' Like the solar system, but also who the prime minister is."

Mary chuckles. "Didn't come up in his line of work, that?"

A smile begins on John's face. "Well, in his defense, not often. Only he'd do something stupid running after a criminal and get a little hurt, you know, and what's one of the questions you're asked to prove you don't have brain damage?"

Mary begins to laugh openly. "'Who's the prime minister?'" she quotes.

"Right!" Now John is chuckling despite himself. "So, god forbid me or Lestrade aren't there, and he gets hurt and he can't answer it, usually makes something up like Jack the Ripper—" at this Mary lets out a shriek—"because he's—he _was_ such an arsehole sometimes, and he'd wind up in hospital under observation faster than you could say 'David Cameron.'"

They are both laughing loudly, and John's eyes meet Mary's across the table. He reaches out his hand and she takes it. "Then this one time," he begins, and she leans forward with interest. They pay no attention to the tea that grows cold, or the sky that grows light. And when John's eyes finally begin to droop, he lets Mary lead him back to the bed, where he sleeps peacefully.

He stays the next night, too. Then more regularly, until a year's passed and John has grown a moustache and bought a ring. His life is not what he expected, but he's happy with it.

His perspective shifts a little when Sherlock Holmes shows up alive one day.

* * *

John doesn't sleep at Baker Street until after Sherlock returns from the dead a third time. The second time he almost died was at the hands of John's wife, his Mary, the mother of his unborn child. The third time was Sherlock's own fault, admittedly, since he snuck out of hospital, but John still sees fit to blame Mary for that, too. It's easier than blaming Sherlock, or worse, himself.

Sherlock is home from hospital on the doctors' release this time, and it's John who helps him up the seventeen steps that first night, to the kitchen table where Sherlock is forced to eat half a tin of soup, then into the loo, and finally to his own bedroom to get some rest.

"I'll be outside if you need me," John says as he shuts the door.

"Why would I need you?" comes the retort, and John smiles because he remembers the first time he heard it, and also because this time the phrase is said without any attempt at rancor. He settles on the sofa with the Union Jack pillow and a blanket, intent on staying nearby so he can wake if Sherlock needs him. John closes his eyes and definitely doesn't think about the situation, doesn't think about why he's here and why he can't go home and what will become of him, of Sherlock, of Mary. He doesn't think how once again, the term "home" doesn't apply in his life. He is back at Baker Street and Sherlock is nearby, so that's enough.

— _Only it's not enough, because it's the war again, and now Sherlock is there wearing the wrong bloody uniform and he keeps running, running, straight to the gunfire like an idiot with a death wish, and John chases behind calling for him, because John can fix Sherlock but not always and not with bullets raining down around them in the middle of the desert—_

— _only now it's the Hound that's after them, because they are back at Dartmoor and the Hound is on their heels and they are running and running and running but John knows they won't be fast enough because—_

— _he's back in front of St. Bart's, except he blinks and he's on the rooftop, too, but Sherlock is still on his mobile and looking down, so maybe John's in both places at once, and Moriarty is dead, but Mary is there—_

— _Mary with a gun, with a gun—_

— _and she's behind Sherlock—_

— _and she's pulling the trigger—_

— _and John tries to scream but he can't get the words out and it's too late because Sherlock is falling—_

— _falling—_

— _falling—_

— _and even though it's too late his voice works now because—_

— _SherlockSherlockSherlock_ —

 _SHERLOCK!_

And John is awake, the echo of a scream ringing in his ears. Sherlock is leaned over him, gripping his shoulders and wearing an expression John rarely sees from him, something in the realm of sentiment, but it has been a strange few weeks. John is gasping for breath, trying to get enough air but there's not enough, there's not enough, there's—

"Breathe, John!" Sherlock orders firmly and holds his shoulders tighter, keeping John in place on the sofa, even though everything in John's body screams at him to get up, get up, get _out_ because he's losing control and Sherlock shouldn't see it. "Everything's all right. We're both safe."

And John notes, as the panic recedes, that Sherlock doesn't say "it's only a dream," because it isn't. It all happened, not in that order, exactly, but close enough. It happened. It's still happening: he's only woken up from the most recent highlights reel.

John Watson had a high threshold for terror. But he was not immune to the fear of losing the two best people he'd ever known. One to death, the other to a lie.

"She—you were—" John starts to explain, but is cut off by another desperate gasp for air.

"Shhh," Sherlock hushes him and squeezes his shoulders tighter in a rare moment of gentleness, which John knows better than to file away in his long-term memory. John shifts on the sofa, drawing up his legs so Sherlock can sit beside him. Sherlock keeps his arms in place and while they aren't actually hugging, it's close enough for John to feel comforted. He shivers and reaches for the blanket on the floor, apparently abandoned during his panic. Sherlock only removes his hands so he can fastidiously tuck the blanket around John's shoulders, his watchful eyes never breaking their contact.

Slowly, John begins to feel warmth again.

It's likely habit from before, what happens next, but John takes a shuddering breath and says, "She was afraid of mice, you know."

Sherlock blinks but otherwise doesn't react. John goes on, because he's learned the best way to combat the bad memories is with the good, the major with the insignificant. So that's what he does. "She was afraid of mice, and we had one get into the flat once. She kept telling me she heard it in the bedroom at night, and I didn't believe her. This goes on for a week."

John pauses. He's not really sure what Sherlock is thinking about all this, but then his deep baritone voice concludes, "And she saw it before you." Because even in these situations, Sherlock knows the punchline, jumps to the end of the story. Which is fine with John.

"Yeah. Only guess where it was."

Sherlock considers. "Were you forced to relocate to the sofa while Mary took the guest room?"

John nods.

"The bed, then." A beat, and then the explanation. "Because you'd eaten biscuits in bed that morning and not cleaned the crumbs. The mouse found the crumbs; Mary found the mouse."

John just keeps nodding and begins to giggle, which is drowned out by Sherlock's deep, rumbling chuckle. Then they are both laughing openly, slightly leaning against one another on the sofa.

"I wanted to run," John admits, once they quiet down. "When you woke me. I wanted to run but realized I didn't have anywhere to go."

He glances out the window. It can't be earlier than four or maybe half three. It's the worst time: not yet morning, not properly night. It could be any time. He could be anywhere, but he had nowhere to go. Everything was in disarray and he wasn't sure what was true anymore, and worse yet feared what wasn't.

John Watson had a high threshold for terror. But he was not immune to fear and what it brought with it.

"Then stay," Sherlock responds matter-of-factly.

John nods once, stares into the shadows past the window, and tries to replace the memories tinged in fear that keep their hold on him. He's home from the war. The hound was only a hallucination. Sherlock didn't fall, didn't die. Mary…Mary was afraid of mice. These are all true. These are nothing to fear.

After that he doesn't know for certain what else is real. Maybe all the rest is lies and darkness. But right now, John has the warmth of the fire, and the blanket, and Sherlock. Right now, there are still moments of laughter.

Right now, that is enough.

* * *

 **Author's note:** this was a long one-thank you for reading! Your comments are greatly appreciated.


End file.
